Thursday, June 5, 2014

Day 63

So many goodbyes!! I've said it before, but I hate goodbyes. I don't do well with endings and change. And right now they just keep on coming. I had to go through all the end of preschool sadness with Clarissa last week and then Josh finished middle school yesterday, I have a bunch of end of the year stuff with Matthew this week and next and then the week after that we're going to my hometown to say goodbye to my mom and stepdad because they're leaving the country for 18 months.

So I'm a little emotional these days. Kind of a lot emotional, actually.

Today was Matthew's end of the year challenge picnic. Challenge is the gifted program he's in at his school. School ends next week for him but today was the last day of challenge. He has been in that program for four years with the same kids and they're like a little family. He has really loved being part of challenge and is sad to see it end. He will be in the gifted program at the middle school as well, but it's different there and there will be different kids.

So today for the last day they invited all the parents of the challenge kids for an end of the year presentation and a picnic. I hate end of the year presentations. It was 19 minutes (NINETEEN MINUTES!) of pictures of the kids journey through challenge set to music about friendship and goodbyes. It was lovely, honestly. Someone clearly put a lot of work into it and it was sweet and I'm grateful for teachers who document things like that. But I don't do well with sappy, long goodbyes.

Ten seconds into it I started getting teary, and I so don't want to be the dorky mom sobbing through the goodbye video. So I took deep breaths, counted to 50 in my head, looked around the room....nineteen minutes this thing went on! It was incredibly sweet and super cute parental torture. I swear, if a mom ever learns of any government secrets and needs to be tortured by the enemy to give them up, all they have to do is play long videos of happy kids linking arms and smiling while songs about endings and goodbyes play in the background. I'd crack in 30 seconds. Why do they do that to us?!

I did pretty good until Green Day Time Of Your Life starting playing. Seriously, challenge lady? Why must you torture us with this? That song only plays when something is ending and people are saying goodbye. I can't listen to the first five notes of that song without wanting to burst into tears and hug everyone in the room. Enough with the goodbyes. I'm a little emotionally fragile lately, lol.

But I made it through nineteen minutes of happy children saying goodbye to challenge and then we went outside for a picnic. There were a few kids who didn't have parents there with them, so we became the blanket for all the parentless kids. I had a good time with that. I like kids that age, especially the gifted program kids. I had a good time talking to them. The picnic was really fun.

So I said goodbye to the challenge teachers and the whole elementary school challenge program. More goodbyes done.

Next week I have to do this again. Twice! Tuesday is the fifth grade program, where I have to sit through more happy kids saying their goodbyes to elementary school, where all the teachers will surely stand up and remind us repeatedly that elementary school is over. It's OVER. Your sweet little kid is a big kid now and he's going to middle school with the scary really big kids. I swear, if they play Green Day I'm going to go have to sit in the parking lot and have a breakdown, lol.

Then the next day is the last day of school and they have a big family picnic for the whole school so that everyone can say goodbye again. Again. AGAIN.

When all of that is over and I am officially emotionally broken, we will start packing to go to my hometown and say goodbye to my mom, and kind of my hometown, because I don't see us going back there while my mom and stepdad are gone and I have a feeling that things are going to change when they get back. My mom and stepdad leaving is a big change that I haven't even begun to process yet because I'm still trying to do all of this end of the school year stuff, but it's going to be a hard goodbye for me.

So pretty much by the time all of that is over, it will literally have been a solid month of goodbyes and change. I'm afraid by the end of it you will find me rocking back and forth in the corner sobbing while Green Day Time Of Your Life plays on repeat. Let's hope it doesn't come to that, lol.

 So that's my emotional state today. You're wondering why this is my daily happy post, and after all that, I'm kind of wondering that myself.

But the picnic today made me happy. Sitting outside in the sunshine with Matthew and his friends eating our lunch and talking about everyone's summer plans made me happy. I'm proud of Matthew and all of his accomplishments and even though all of these goodbyes are making me sad, I'm happy that I can be there to watch my kids grow and learn and progress. A picnic with Matthew made me happy today. :)



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